These results concur with patterns observed in coastal lowland forests of eastern Australia (Pharo et al. 1999), but they contradict results from forests of the Azores and in

Selleckchem PLX4032 Indonesia in which no correlations were found among bryophytes, macrolichens, and vascular plant cover (Kessler et al, in press; Gabriel and Bates 2005). These studies, however, did not separate liverworts from mosses, nor between epiphytic and terrestrial species. Overall, numerous studies have found that patterns of alpha diversity between different higher level taxa show only limited correlation (e.g., Lawton et al. 1998; Schulze et al. 2004; Tuomisto and Ruokolainen 2005; McMullan-Fisher 2008). Beta diversity The variability of beta diversity as revealed

by additive partitioning showed that species turnover is highly dependent the spatial scale. Generally, we found more variation in species richness between taxonomic groups within smaller spatial scales (plot) than on the regional scale. Nevertheless, by adding all species of one taxonomic group of one study site, we recorded only 55–65% of regional species richness, with the tendency of higher proportions in the epiphytic habitat. This marked regional differentiation is noteworthy bearing in mind that our study Dibutyryl-cAMP cell line taxa disperse by spores and are usually widespread, occurring well beyond the range spanned by our study sites (Gradstein et al. 2007; Kürschner and Parolly 2007; Lehnert et al. 2007; Nöske et al. 2007). Causes for this regional differentiation may involve slight climatic and geological differences between the three study sites (Gradstein et al. 2008) as well as stochastic dispersal and this website extinction

events (Wolf 1994). Ferns showed greater differences between terrestrial and epiphytic patterns at Alanine-glyoxylate transaminase the plot level than any other study group. Although in the terrestrial habitat, ca. 12% of total diversity was occurred in sampling one plot, this amount was more than doubled in the epiphytic habitat. The majority of terrestrial ferns are relatively large (e.g., Cyatheaceae, Dryopteridaceae) compared to the majority of epiphytic taxa (e.g., Hymenophyllaceae, Polypodiaceae), which may explain the lower density of terrestrial fern species on the relatively small plots. Correlations of beta diversity among our plant groups (lichens not included due to low species richness) were higher in the terrestrial than in the epiphytic habitat, and most pronounced for mosses and liverworts. Overall, congruence of beta diversity patterns among study groups was lower than that of alpha diversity. This implies that at least for our studied taxa, the use of an indicator group as a surrogate for others is more applicable for species richness than for community composition. This finding contrasts with studies among vascular plants in lowland Amazonia (Tuomisto and Ruokolainen 2005; Barlow et al.